Meet Twitter for Google TV

By
Monday, 4 October 2010

People often tweet about TV shows as they’re watching them. Additionally, media companies are increasingly finding new ways to incorporate Tweets into their programs. Take, for example, Jimmy Fallon or the Video Music Awards in September. Tweets aren’t just about TV shows; they are part of them.

We’ve long discussed what the interplay between Twitter and television would look like. As a first step, today we’re announcing Twitter for Google TV. It brings Twitter to a platform that merges the Internet and TV into one experience.

The application has most of the features and functionality that you’d expect from Twitter. It makes it easy to look through Tweets, @mentions, and favorites. When you click on a Tweet, you can reply, retweet, favorite, or share it. You will also see additional options depending on the content of the Tweet. For example, you can visit a URL or click a hashtag to search for it on Twitter. If a user is mentioned, you can visit that user’s profile to see their Tweets or follow them. And if there is a link to a photo or video, you can see a thumbnail version. Clicking the link will take you to the site so you can see a larger version of the photo or watch the video.

Additionally, the search box provides access to trending topics and recent searches, so you can quickly check out popular topics and revisit past searches. Twitter for Google TV, which is preinstalled, also lets you share videos, web pages, pictures, and other content on Twitter – just look for the “Share” option and select Twitter.

This is just the beginning of what could be possible at the intersection of Twitter and television. We’re excited to see what’s next.